The present invention relates to storing and transporting substances used in clinical medicine that require refrigeration. The invention particularly relates to the handling of trays of allergenic extracts, or like clinical liquids, which are normally stored and refrigerated in small glass vials of various standard sizes.
Allergenic extracts, which are used to test for patient allergies, are stored in small glass vials that may be handled by numerous persons and that may have to be sent through the mail or carried between a physicians' office, or even a patient's home, and a clinical laboratory for analysis. The liquid extract needs to be kept refrigerated and heretofore refrigerated storage consisted of placing vials in a vial tray in a refrigerator and only removing the vials for a short period of time for use or for transporting the vials unrefrigerated over short distances.
The present invention seeks to overcome the limitations and severe inconvenience imposed by conventional means of handling allergenic extracts, and to permit extracts to be transported over greater distances and to be easily handled in a clinical lab without the need to continually replace the vials in a lab refrigerator. The present invention specifically provides a passive transportable cooling unit wherein one or more vial trays can be easily stored within arms reach and in which small to large numbers of vials can be easily transported over large distances, such as between a doctor's office and a remote clinical lab.